The fingers were erect and wagging at Obama as anti-Semite and turncoat, which I found a bit radical.

Of course, other analyst-pundits have been weighing in on the UN’s latest gang-up on the world’s One Jewish State and the Administration’s dithering abstention, and that cacophony doubtless includes similar charges (or language) from Right side of the aisle.

Be that as it may, the chorus was heard with the original poster’s complaint that no dissent had been heard.

Well, at least let there be an argument.

I’ll dissent.

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/12/24/ftac-moscows-presence-in-the-middle-east-conflict/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/11/23/moscows-rules-a-module/

If there is, has been, or will be a contest between “medieval political absolutism” and the “modern democratic and checked distribution of power”, the same involves meeting the challenges posed by the “Phantoms of the Soviet” (the Union died 25 years, Dec. 25, 1991).

I think the west too quick to march on in post-Cold War glory — and the rush to do business with the reforming new Russia — and it got taken in by Moscow while Moscow, as represented by “Vertical-of-Power” Putin has gently but firmly twisted the state’s narrative from “Glasnost” all the way back to proto-fascist ultra-nationalism and neo-imperialism — backed by the demonstration of barbarism (in Syria), aggression (in Ukraine), and the possession of nuclear arms and updated weapons systems.

Is anyone feeling lucky?

While it’s true the Obama Administration has avoided direct confrontation with Moscow (how unseemly that would look! And I say that as cynically as any here), it has weakened Moscow’s ability to project and sustain military aggression in the near abroad. It will then be left to President Trump to address Putin and either abet, contain, or push back against what the Moscow Revival presents to western interests.

The UN resolution was execrable in every dimension!

https://www.un.org/press/en/2016/sc12657.doc.htm

However, the true target in east-west relations and in the middle east conflict remains a recalcitrant Moscow. A dangerous Moscow. A dictator’s Moscow (and check out the alignments on the voting).

Between Trump (Manafort, Millian, Kilimnik) and Putin, let’s hope the superficial media-relayed “bromance” is over — or it will be our lives more organized along more feudal principles in conflict with modern (democratic) ones.

Loosely related but from another conversation —

I wanted to suggest to you that a working “secular democracy” actually enables the full expression of religious passion as a private and private community matter. The system supports boundaries and a common agreement on the prudence and sensibility of good law, i.e., law that sustains a free and vibrant social order.

Jihad, provocation, and terrorism mean to upset civil order — and they can do it!

When will the west again push back against criminal, fascist, and proto-fascist aggression, I don’t know but know that as it loses its principles and values, if it does, it will have to respond to absolutism.

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